Script: Announcer: "For 20 years, Barack Obama followed a preacher of hate and said nothing as Wright raged against our country." Sound from clips: "Not God bless America, God damn America," "U.S. of KKKA." Announcer: "He built his power base in Wright's church. Wright was his mentor, adviser and close friend. For 20 years, Obama never complained -- until he ran for president. Barack Obama. Too radical. Too risky. The National Republican Trust PAC is responsible for the content of this advertisement."

Video: The commercial opens with Obama in profile next to embedded video of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in now-famous YouTube clips, surrounded by the posterlike display, "Hate he could believe in." The perspective on the clips shifts to close-up as the posterlike display below it shifts from "Hate" to "God." Superimposed text next to Obama's mouth in profile says "I don't think my church is particularly controversial." Perspective closes in to a still photo of Wright, followed by a display in a homelike setting of framed photos of Wright with Obama. The camera zooms in on a photo of the two, under the words "Too radical" and "Too risky."

Analysis: John McCain has frustrated and puzzled some strategists and supporters by not making an issue of the relationship between Obama and Wright, a former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago lately known for fiery sermons and radical politics.

Stepping in is the National Republican Trust Political Action Committee -- a month-old anti-Obama group that has no official tie to the Republican National Committee and says it is spending $2.5 million to air this ad in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.

Wright, once described by Obama as his spiritual adviser, officiated at Obama's wedding and baptized his two daughters. Obama credited a Wright sermon, "The Audacity of Hope," for drawing him to Christianity. But extensive reporting showed Wright and his church playing no significant role, if any, in Obama's rising political career, and Obama said they have disagreed since the 1980s about the importance of race as opposed to class in divisions.

Obama began to distance himself from Wright before his presidential campaign. The pastor's more inflammatory remarks led Obama to deliver a major speech on race last March in which he rejected the remarks as "not only wrong but divisive." After Wright's subsequent comments and dismissal of the speech, Obama angrily denounced him personally and cut all ties, saying: "When I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it. It contradicts everything that I am about and who I am, and anybody who has worked with me, who knows my life, who has read my books, who has seen what this campaign's about, I think, will understand that it is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country."

-- Tom Feran

tferan@plaind.com

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